Thursday, September 11, 2014

China’s defensivemissile technology makes strides. A number of antiship cruise missiles, or ASCMs have been deployed in multiple PLA naval
drills this year. They also been sold to other navies around the world.
China’s long-range, multi-purpose, all-weather, anti-ship cruise missiles, C802A...

China revealed its HongQi-10 surface-to-air missile system for the first time Wednesday.

The advanced system, which can mitigate the threat from low-altitude anti-ship missiles, was unveiled during a China Central Television (CCTV) report.

As a naval point-defense missile system, HongQi-10 boasts a particularly quick response to low-altitude missiles that area-defense systems fail to intercept. It has a high success rate in intercepting them, Lan Yun, deputy chief editor of Modern Ships, told the Global Times.

The point-defense missile system defends a warship against rockets over a limited area. It is in contrast to an area-defense system that targets medium- and long-range objects with slower response and lower success rate.

HongQi-10 can be prepared to launch missiles in about 10 seconds and aims at missiles only 1.5 to 10 meters above the sea level, Lan said.

The advanced system, equipped with both infrared and microwave seekers, can secure naval ships against anti-ship missiles outfitted with either infrared or microwave radiation, Lin Yuchen, a missile expert of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp, told CCTV.

The dual seeker missiles can combat interference from jamming, since an infrared seeker is always combined with a radar seeker that often detects waves whose wavelengths are longer than microwaves, said naval expert Li Jie.

In addition to maritime defense, the low- to medium-level air defense system is also designed to protect ground forces from air attacks by jets, unmanned aerial vehicles and cruise missiles, said Lin.

Such small missile system can be widely deployed due to its agility, he added.

The system was adopted by the Liaoning aircraft carrier and the type 056 corvette in 2011, said Lan.

China Surpasses US in Hypersonic Weapons

National
Defense magazine publishes an article by Valerie Insinna titled “US,
China in Race to Develop Hypersonic Weapons”, stating that only two
countries in the world China and the US have succeeded in testing their
hypersonic weapons. The article fails to describe the application of
such weapons, but focus on defense against such weapons.

There are detailed descriptions about China’s hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV) in my book. I have only to point out:

1. Chinese HGV has achieved a speed of Mach 10 while the US one, only Mach 5.

2. China will develop HGV with the speed of Mach 22 launched from its space-air bomber.

Mach
10 means 3.3 km per second. If launched from the height of 100 km low
orbit of a satellite, it takes 30 seconds, an HGV reaches its target.
Rich Fisher’s rail gun needs 2 minutes; therefore, there is no defense
against a Mach 10 HGV.

If the HGV flies at a speed of Mach 22, it takes only 12 seconds!

That
is why China adopts the Space Era Strategy to develop integrated space
and air capabilities. The US, however, sticks to its outdated strategy
of Air-Sea Battle. It focuses on defense instead of attack and is,
therefore, doomed to defeat.

ICBM was first developed in early
1960s, but even now more than 50 years later, we still cannot 100%
intercept it. Our interception system will be regarded as very good if
the rate of interception is 50%.

The US has not yet been able to
produce workable HGV, but focus on development of weapons to defend it.
Why? Because it has to protect the major weapons of its Air-Sea
Battle—its very expensive nuclear aircraft carriers.

In space era, aircraft carrier is obsolete.

The following is the full text of the magazine’s article:

US, China in Race to Develop Hypersonic Weapons
By Valerie Insinna

On
the heels of reports that China had successfully completed a second
ultra-high-speed missile flight test, the Defense Department announced
on Aug. 25 that it had aborted a test of its own hypersonic weapon.

The
military is investigating the “anomaly” responsible for the test
failure, but analysts told National Defense that the incident was not a
major setback for the program.

"It's a glitch. These are weapons
that operate under fantastic stresses,” said Rick Fisher, a senior
fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. “Failure is
not necessarily a bad thing, especially if data can be gathered so that
you learn from your mistake.”

“These weapons are traveling at such
fantastic speeds and they are required to be capable of such accuracy
that it is simply going to require an extensive development program to
achieve a point where they can be considered ready for the field,” he
added.

The Aug. 25 test of the advanced hypersonic weapon was
aborted because of an unspecified flight anomaly, according to a Defense
Department news release. “The test was terminated near the launch pad
shortly after liftoff to ensure public safety. There were no injuries to
any personnel,” the release read.

Testers made the decision to
destroy the rocket within four seconds of its launch at the Kodiak
Launch Complex in Alaska, said Maureen Schumann, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
She was not able to provide additional information on what the anomaly
was or how it was detected.

The advanced hypersonic weapon is just
one of the technologies under development in the conventional prompt
global strike program, she said. The goal is to create a menu of
precision strike options that would be able to hit anywhere in the world
in under an hour.

U.S. program officials are conducting an
investigation to determine the cause of this Monday’s test failure, said
Schumann. The investigation will likely take “weeks or months” to
finish and will inform future tests and scheduling.

The August
test was the second flight of the advanced hypersonic weapon, Schumann
said. “The objective of the test was to develop and demonstrate
hypersonic boost glide enabling technologies and collect data on flight
vehicle and test range performance for long-range atmospheric flights.”

The
United States may not be the only country that has been testing
high-speed weapons this month. China conducted the second test flight of
its hypersonic glide vehicle — called the Wu-14 — on Aug. 7, unnamed
U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon.

Schumann would not
confirm whether the Chinese military had executed a second Wu-14 test
in August. Earlier this year, the Pentagon confirmed the Wu-14’s first
flight test in January.

Based on the available evidence, including
Chinese reports circulating the internet, it seems probable that there
was a second Wu-14 test recently, Fisher said.

"China and the
United States are seeking to develop the same range of hypersonic
weapons, both boost-glide or hypersonic glide vehicles, and future
air-breathing hypersonic vehicles, such as scram jets,” Fisher said.

The
U.S. program appears to have progressed further, “but the Chinese
program may be better funded and have greater depth in terms of the
commitment of intellectual and development resources,” he said.

Mark
Gunzinger, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary
Assessments, said he is skeptical that China’s development of hypersonic
weapons has matured past that of the United States.

“We hear
about the successes and not the failures” of the Chinese program, he
said. “They could have had dozens of failures that we know nothing
about, at least in public.”

Hypersonic weapons could be
operational within a decade, Gunzinger said. The challenge, especially
in a budget-conscious environment, will be figuring out how to drive
down manufacturing costs.

“Can we find a sweet spot in hypersonic weapons where the price point is right and we can buy enough of them?” he asked.

One
of the reasons why hypersonic weapons are so highly coveted is because
they are difficult to shoot down, Fisher said. Directed energy weapons,
such as a hypersonic capable rail gun or laser, could offer a way to
counter hypersonic missiles.

"If you have two to four rail guns
for example, [and] you get maybe a two-minute warning that a hypersonic
warhead is coming at you, that's enough time to put into the sky clouds
of hypersonic rail gun rounds that are designed like shotgun shells,” he
said. “They'll release into the air 100 to 200 tungsten pellets. Even
if the hypersonic warhead is maneuvering, you're likely to knick it with
one of these pellets, and that alone will make the warhead tumble out
of control."

The United States appears to be further along in its
efforts to develop directed energy weapons, although China’s program is
not particularly transparent, Fisher said.

The Navy in April
unveiled a high-speed electromagnetic rail gun capable of launching
projectiles at speeds up to 5,600 miles per hour. The service has also
tested its laser weapons system at sea, proving that it could shoot down
small unmanned aircraft.

That laser currently lacks the power and
range necessary to destroy a hypersonic glide vehicle, but it could
become powerful enough in the next decade to shoot down such weapons,
Fisher said. A hypersonic speed capable rail gun is possible in the
early 2020s, he added.

Gunzinger said it may be too difficult to
intercept a hypersonic missile with a high-powered laser, but rail guns
could be well suited for those missions.

The advanced hypersonic
missile was developed by Sandia National Laboratory and the Army. Its
first flight test took place in November 2011 and was successful, with
the missile traveling from Hawaii and hitting a target at the Reagan
Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands.